Here’s my column from last week’s Leader. It forms part of the paper’s comprehensive pre-match coverage every Friday, featuring interviews, an in-depth look at the opposition and lots of statistical analysis. All content in the column (c) www.leaderlive.co.uk.

They call it scoreboard pressure in cricket, and on Tuesday we had an opportunity to apply some on our promotion rivals. How frustrating that we weren’t able to apply it.

With Grimsby, Dartford and Luton tied up with their FA Trophy tussles and Newport and Forest Green having their games called off, our game against Southport was an opportunity to steal a march on everybody but Kidderminster, whose game with survived the weather, the packed schedule and Telford’s journey down that great footballing road, the A442.

I know playing Southport meant we had played a game more than some of our rivals, but it’s better that way. Scoreboard pressure is the idea that batting first is an advantage because you put the onus on your opponents. You might not make a massive score, but the fact that those runs are safe on the board places pressure on the chasing team, who sometimes stutter when chasing a total they would probably pass with ease without the inhibition of having that number in their minds.

It’s a principle which transfers easily enough to football. Think of penalty shoot-outs. Statistical surveys suggest that the side which goes second tends to win a disproportionate number of shoot-outs, considering the fact that all the conditions are essentially the same for both sides.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise though. When you watch a shoot-out you are constantly told by the commentators that the side going second are under pressure as they constantly try to come back from behind. It’s a notion which seems to be widely accepted: they even apply it on “Eggheads” when they decide whether to take the first or the second set of questions!

Now I think about it, I realise that I can’t resist applying metaphors from other sports to our title challenge. The other way I look at this season is like a cyclist who doesn’t have a sprint finish. The best chance of victory comes from their team setting a strong pace from the start and burning off their rivals. There’s no point in having a fast finish when the sprint comes if you’re five miles back, sweating from your eyeballs, suffering with all the other riders who couldn’t keep up with the pace.

We need to take that approach, keep accumulating points and then looking over our shoulders to see that our pursuers are sliding further and further back. It worked well last season, when by this point of the campaign we’d pretty much burned off everybody but Fleetwood. Unfortunately, the financially juiced Lancastrians were too tough to shake off.

We can still do that this season, and make no mistake, they’ll all be dropping points as the season wears on and the pressure increases. However, we need to be ruthless to achieve that, and especially in games like last Tuesday’s. Southport, beaten three times by us already, are no mugs. However, we got ourselves into a winning position late in the game and should have closed it out. It was a great chance to get those runs on the board.